As textile substrates age, their color tends to fade or yellow due to exposure to light, air, soil, and natural degradation of the fibers that comprise the substrates. To counteract this unwanted effect, laundry detergent manufacturers incorporate hueing agents into their products. Thus, the purpose of hueing agents is typically to visually brighten these textile substrates and counteract the fading and yellowing of the textile substrates.
Hueing agents are typically formulated into solid laundry detergent compositions, especially free-flowing particulate laundry detergent compositions that comprise polymers, such as clay and soil removal/anti-redeposition agents. Such polymers whilst contributing to good cleaning on a wide variety of fabric types unfortunately can negatively affect the performance of hueing agents especially on cotton fabrics.
The Inventors have found that by using a specific hueing agent, herein referred to as bluing agent, in accordance with the present invention, in combination with specific clay and soil removal/anti-redeposition agents, a laundry detergent composition can be provided having excellent whiteness performance on cotton fabric.